Session One Anthology

MENTOR: KAVEH AKBAR

The Night My Father Was Robbed

Hiwot Adilow

I ran downstairs with a hammer & turned on every light.I said I hate this country & spat on the ground where I was born.It isn’t this country the Black cop said, writing down the factsof theft. Back then I didn’t know History’s names. I couldn’tdrop knowledge bombs. I didn’t know Osage burnedaround the corner where I was bred & breastfed.Everybody with the last name Africa was bombedby the first Black mayor. Complex. & I didn’t know Goodeor Rizzo or my own father’s youth, soaked in red & wringing.The Amharic word for Terror rhymes the English “shiver.”Fear evokes movement, even if it’s just a solitary tremble,quiet shifts back & forth. I look behind me& name Ethiopia the promised land.I still relay its myths, nod along to dead prophecies.I read half a halfverse about Rastas & thought,if someone calls a country heaven it must be so.Who first called the country I was born in paradise?Who first referred to America as a dreamscape?Who said, I’m lucky to be here galloping over all this vast blood?I trot across the bones of people stolen & people stolen from.Every heaven kills its citizens when they don’t sing.Alarms cross at the forearms & scream.My mouth tears meat from bone,gleams wet over flesh & kisses in hunger.My lips quiet so they won’t cry out.My father asks what I have there,in his country. His question isan answer in itself. A wound heals off-hinge.I pour all my money into the ocean to sitstill. Gallons of red trundle under earth & I don’t move.

~

Hiwot Adilow is an Ethiopian-american poet and singer-songwriter from Philadelphia. She first began performing as a member of the Philly Youth Poetry Movement and is a former participant of the Brave New Voices International Poetry Festival. Her poetry has been featured on CNN’s Black In America, NPR’s Tell Me More, and Wisconsin Public Television. You can also find her work in Wusgood.black, Winter Tangerine Review, Nepantla, TheOffing, and DuendeLiterary. Hiwot is a 2016 Callaloo Poetry Fellow and a member of the First Wave Hip-Hop and Urban Arts Learning Community at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she studies Anthropology and African Studies.

portrait of his fist

Emma Rebholz

like a bottle of winehis instinct wasto carry me by the neck

beet-knuckled thingtoo familiar with the wayskin peeled clean

under the simple wantof his pink fingernailshow many nights did I lose

to his flask’s cold lipbefore he split minedown the middle

chapped skin attemptingto separate from the restwhat’s inside we both wondered

how deep will this cutrupture throughthe glass of me

how long will I waitbefore I prymyself open

if it takes a prayerthen god let me shattergod

let him bleed

~

Emma Rebholz is currently an undergraduate Writing, Literature, and Publishing major at Emerson College. Like their favorite cat mug, they can be described as having "excellent design, delicate details, exquisite shapes, and pleasant feelings." Their poetry has been recently published or is forthcoming in FreezeRay, Souvenir, and Maps for Teeth. They probably want to be your friend.

singing

Jordan Jace

moon like a hot-fogged mirror / you palmed a glass of wine / we had both been afraid of the dark / so wesat in it now in mock repentance / your glass empties and fills with shadows / earlier you’d taken fistfulsof salt water/ to drink and become sick with thirst / we vomited our offering to the sea / the waves / sacredinstruments that they are / religion / no religion / still worshipping something / you slip off your clothes /and crawl into cold water / i listened for your anklet / in the waves while you sang / i dig a hole for fire /you are parading naked with a crown / quiet-eyed horses / prowl to the shore / waves feed the sand /mouthful / after / blue mouthful

~

Jordan Jace is a junior at Williams College.

POEM WITHOUT A FATHER

Brad Trumpfheller

In the heatof the sidewalk worms

pray for rain clacktheir wormmouths

dry like curls of hairin the shower

above them I watchedafternoon bend to night

my brother worea cow skull like a helmet

biked crop circlesaround the driveway

I wrapped myselfin polka dot sheets

slashed with eyeholesthe moon a cigarette

burn on my armthe tragedy is

I did it myselfI howled at the burndark

my brother nevercame back inside

his skeleton is a cowskeleton that clatters

worms are dyingall around his bike

which riderless stillcircles the driveway

I covered myselfin animal names

I nailed a listof men who robbed me

to the bathroom wallthey are all named worm

I can’t wait for them to die

I ran all nightin a nightgown of bones

while the women smokedand danced in the shower

~

Brad Trumpfheller is an undergraduate student at Emerson College. Their poetry is forthcoming from Gigantic Sequins, Muzzle, Indiana Review, and elsewhere.

Contortionists

Nix Therese

from “Snow Black”; after Safia Elhillo, Frank Ocean, and Cecily Parks

once Beaux spun me so fast the tiles melted caramel to matchtheir eyes I could steep in their cologne my body bobbing

in dusk or in moonshine where we snatched cherries that burstto pulp syrup spilling easy as summer gnat blood on our fingers

sleep slotted us together I dreamt their face in pigweed and ryeall features erased I’d wake to their attempts to halve their husk

with their eyes closed they gasped as if already sliced I stilled their armswhile they twitched I eased them back to goosebumps flaring in our hair

against glass jolted awake screamed a curl of a girl wincing in bedI opened to sunrise their face was shaky ink settling into groove

what could we be if not trapped in trances what would they be if not mineI held séance in the shower asked a former teacher to rid this hurricane

from my bones she said make bathwaves til you shrivel step out rebloom but I couldn’tsoak Beaux’s chest watch fears twist in their hands too cherries are skunked now

taste of a wrong dress in full length mirror water finally balks I stay torched

~

Nix Thérèse is a sonically-driven, compassionate poet from New Orleans. They serve as Associate Digital Editor for the Fairy Tale Review, Contributing Editor for The Wilds' Literary Guide through Platypus Press, and Advisor for Winter Tangerine's intensive online workshops. Before graduating from Emerson College, they were honored with Distinction in Poetry by the Writing, Literature, and Publishing department. Their latest project, "Snow Black", has earned them support from VONA/Voices and the Women's Voices mentorship program. This retelling of "Snow White" is set in southern Louisiana and prioritizes racial tension, gender exploration, and the processes of trauma. They enjoy stories rich as their lipstick.

LANDSCAPE WITH WINTER AND LOT'S WIFE

Kaveh Akbar

for Diane Seuss

this is supposed to hurt no one cares about context honor my discretion part of me is all gold bathe me to find out which part I’m yours to polish to gut how do I accept that this is the onlysoul I’ll ever own do you think

it would help if I woke up earlier if I started drinking again name one unravagedwonder name one way to exit this world without leaving a mess Lot’s wifewas actually named “Lot’s wife” some

birds fall to the earth and burst into snow in some light snow looks a lot like salt though snow dis-appears in a way salt does not

as a rule weather is to betrusted the worstthat can happen can happen at any time

try adding more rooms to your house three rooms

nine rooms a saviorin your home is worth

two in the bush submitto your own safety

submit to your own human heart

sometimes the brightness here makes

my ears pop you can’t walk

away now you are covered

in so much snow

~

Kaveh Akbar's poems appear recently or soon in The New Yorker, Poetry, APR, Ploughshares, PBS NewsHour, and elsewhere. His debut full-length collection, Calling a Wolf a Wolf, will be published by Alice James Books in Fall 2017; he is also the author of the chapbook Portrait of the Alcoholic. A recipient of the Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation and the Lucille Medwick Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America, Kaveh was born in Tehran, Iran, and currently lives and teaches in Florida.